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BOG BLOG : 14 – 21 JUNE 2013

FEATURING THIS WEEK’s ARTICLES POSTED TO WCs ACROSS GIBS CAMPUS

Art by Yda, in GIBS Info Centre

McKinsey: The $33 trillion technology payoff, Steve Lohr

McKinseyGlobalInstitute

A new report from the McKinsey Global Institute, the research arm of the consulting firm, delivers a twist on the art form, and the difference is more than the timing. The 154-page report not only selects a dozen “disruptive” technologies from a candidate list of 100, but also measures their economic impact. By 2025, the 12 technologies — led by the mobile Internet, the automation of knowledge work, and the Internet of Things — have the potential to deliver economic value of up to $33 trillion a year worldwide, according to the McKinsey researchers. That would be a sweeping and disruptive effect indeed, since economists project that by 2025 global economic output will be about $100 trillion. The McKinsey report does include the estimated value of the social benefits of using a more efficient technology, like time saved. Such benefits — known as “consumer surplus” — are not included in conventional measures of economic output. (An example would be the value of time saved by quickly finding answers to questions by using a search engine. Google economists estimate that saving at up to $65 billion annually.) The estimated range of the impact of the dozen technologies is also quite wide, from $14 trillion to $33 trillion by 2025.

Cuisine a la Maxine! Some . . . life lessons everyone should know by the age of 50, Regina Brett

1. Life isn’t fair, but it’s still good.

2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.

3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.

4. Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does.

6. You don’t have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.

7. Cry with someone. It’s more healing than crying alone.

10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.

11. Make peace with your past so it won’t screw up the present.

13. Don’t compare your life to others’. You have no idea what their journey is all about.

14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn’t be in it.

16. Life is too short for long pity parties. Get busy living, or get busy dying.

17. You can get through anything if you stay put in today.

19. It’s never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.

20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don’t take no for an answer.

22. Overprepare, then go with the flow.

23. Be eccentric now. Don’t wait for old age to wear purple.

25. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.

26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words: “In five years, will this matter?”

27. Always choose life.

28. Forgive everyone everything.

29. What other people think of you is none of your business.

31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.

32. Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will. Stay in touch.

35. Whatever doesn’t kill you really does make you stronger.

36. Growing old beats the alternative – dying young.

37. Your children get only one childhood. Make it memorable.

40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else’s, we’d grab ours back.

World Bank report shows how improving the port at Dar es Salaam could boost the GDP of Tanzania by up to US$1.8 billion and its landlocked neighbours by up to US$ 830 million. Dar es Salaam was built in a natural harbour on the Indian Ocean, 1,934 miles down the coast from Mombasa. Like the harbour of its Kenyan neighbour, transport links converge in this crucial trade port. However since the initial privatisation-driven efficiency boom in the 1990s, things have not been operating as smoothly as they should be and negative comparisons have been be made with the port at Mombasa.

Tanzania is Losing the Equivalent of 7% of GDP Through Inefficiency – The report draws numerous unfavourable comparisons with Mombasa and calculates that the total cumulative cost of inefficiency in Dar es Salaam is equivalent to “a tariff of 22% on container imports and of about 5% on bulk imports.” On top of this it estimates that, “if the port of Dar es Salaam were to become as efficient as Mombasa’s, the Tanzanian economy would gain almost USD 1.8 billion per year, equal to approximately 7% of its current GDP. Regional gains would be in the range of USD 800 million per year. This is equivalent to more than USD 40 per person, a significant sum compared to current average incomes.” The port is crucial to Tanzania because approximately 90% of the country’s trade transits through it. However, it is also important as the gateway for international trade for East Africa’s landlocked countries, including Zambia, Uganda, DRC, Rwanda and Burundi. This makes “Dar es Salaam port the second most important gateway for regional trade in East Africa after Mombasa.” . . . .

Tanzanians Pay 110% More for Food than Their Counterparts in Brazil – The Tanzanian economy has experienced strong, steady economic growth which has been driven by a small number of rapidly expanding sectors: communications, financial services, construction, manufacturing and retail. The report stresses however that food prices are still extremely high and calculates that a poor Tanzanian household living on maize, rice and wheat would pay 110% more (per kilogram) than its counterpart in Brazil.

You could get a lot more done if your employees would just get off the Internet and get to work, right? Some estimate that time spent not working results in $130 billion (with a b) in lost productivity. So the last thing you want is your employees on Facebook or personal email. (Reading Inc.com is, of course, always good for your business.) . . . But a new study done by a team of economists reports that, even if they’re working, it’s the the temptation of the forbidden Internet that actually lowers their productivity. I’m always skeptical of research involving 60 volunteers, who are undoubtedly college students who had to volunteer for a study to get credit for their introductory psychology classes. Even so, the results are intriguing: They showed that concentration dropped when there was a video that the participants wanted to watch but were told not to. The theory is, the energy to resist temptation detracted from their ability to focus on the task. Lesson: If you just let them watch the video, they can then focus on the task at hand.

I’m sure that is true. Any time we’re focused on something other than the task at hand, we’re more likely to make mistakes. But the unspoken problem here is not the temptation itself but the idea that the manager is going to swoop in and discipline them for taking a break. The authors of the study latched on to the Internet as the example of how this plays out in the workplace, but the reality is, the Internet is only one small attention sinkhole. Co-workers, planning your kid’s birthday party, last night’s episode of Downton Abbey, and everything else under the sun can also be a distraction to your employees. I think it’s more of an issue of micromanagement. So, with all these things competing for your employees’ attention, just how do you increase productivity? I say, let them be grownups.

. . .

What works is focusing on results. If your employees are nonexempt, you do have to pay them by the hour for their work (and pay overtime, when applicable), but if they are exempt employees (that is, professionals or managerial or outside sales workers), let them be grownups. Set expectations. If problems come up, address the problems. If their work is otherwise good, who cares if they check Facebook eight times per day? You want the best results for your business, so let your employees have the flexibility to work the way they work best. Not the way you work best. – *This post is in partnership with Inc., which offers useful advice, resources, and insights to entrepreneurs and business owners. The article below was originally published at Inc.com.

This year’s BrandZ ranking of the top 100 valuable global brands sees Apple maintain its reign at number one and the value of the top brands grow by 7 per cent to $2.6 trillion

Ranking

Brand

Brand value 2013 ($M)

1

Apple

185,071

2

Google

113,669

3

IBM

112,536

4

McDonald’s

90,256

5

Coca-Cola

78,415

6

AT&T

75,507

7

Microsoft

69,814

8

Marlboro

69,383

9

Visa

56,060

10

China Mobile

55,368

The world’s biggest brands are worth hundreds of billions of dollars – and this year’s list of the 100 most valuable comes in at an astonishing $2.6 trillion, according to Millward Brown Optimor, which produces the annual BrandZ list.But what makes a brand worth as much as $185bn, the value of Apple this year? A balance of local and global strength, diversifying into new areas of business, having a strong corporate brand and either being a premium or everyday brand are some of the features which help to make it to the top. The top 10 brands, such as Google ($113.7bn), IBM ($112.5bn), McDonald’s ($90.3bn) and Coca-Cola ($78.4bn) have these qualities in spades, says global BrandZ director Peter Walshe.

15 Indian and multinational companies are working on 25 different projects in different parts of the city to give shape to Chennai’s metro rail project. Sources said that many of the projects are worth thousands of crore and that work on many of the elevated projects are on the verge of completion. Interestingly, many international firms have joined hands with the Indian firms to bag the tenders for the metro rail projects. It includes Emirates Trading Agency LLC, Dubai, and ETA Engineering Private Limited, India Consortium joining hands for the Rs 241.83-crore project to build tunnel ventilation system and Afcons, an Indian construction and infrastructure company, joining hands with Transtonnelstroy Limited, a Russian company, to design and construct underground stations at Washermanpet, Mannadi, High Court, Chennai Central, Egmore, Shenoy Nagar, Anna Nagar East, Anna Nagar Tower and Thirumangalam at a cost of over `2,500 crore.

Larsen & Toubro Limited (L&T) and Shanghai Urban Construction (Group) Corporation are together designing and constructing the underground stations at Nehru Park, College and Pachaiap Kilpauk Medicalpa’s College and Associated Tunnels. Siemens Aktiengesellschaft, Germany, and Siemens Limited India Consortium have teamed up to install signalling, platform screen doors and telecommunications. This project is worth `627.13 crore. – Alstom Transport S A and Alstom Projects India Ltd Consortium have teamed up to design, manufacture, supply, testing and commissioning of Electric Multiple Units (EMUs) and training of personnel. The project is worth Rs 1,471 crore.

Some of the projects are being handled alone by the Indian companies. These include Rs 199.20-crore project of design and construction of elevated viaduct from Koyambedu to Ashok Nagar by Soma Enterprises and Rs 178.94-crore project undertaken by Lanco Infratech to design and construct elevated station at Meenambakkam. Architectural Builders Works and Finishes (ABWF) and Building Services (BS) are working on Chennai Airport station, and on cut-cover tunnel between OTA station and Chennai Airport station.

In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments; there are consequences.